Northern Ireland woman takes part in new BBC1 show The Big Painting Challenge

Lisburn woman Jennifer Morrow who will take part in a new TV show called The Big Painting Challenge. Photo: Ed Miller/PA Wire

Published:15:29Thursday 12 January 2017

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A Northern Ireland woman is bidding for glory as BBC1 relaunchs The Big Painting Challenge.

Jennifer Morrow from Lisburn is one of ten contestants taking part in the show which the BBC hopes can deliver the same recipe for success as The Great British Bake Off.

Mariella Frostrup and Reverend Richard Coles who will be presenting a new TV show called The Big Painting Challenge. Photo: Ed Miller/PA Wire

The broadcaster, which lost Bake Off to Channel 4, has unveiled the six part series, which will air later this year.

Despite having the same title as a previous painting series, the BBC said that the new programme - presented by the Rev Richard Coles and Mariella Frostrup - was a different show.

The six-part series will see 10 amateur artists embark on a series of painting challenges, helped by two mentors, in an attempt to be crowned champion.

Three judges from the arts world critique the paintings and decide which contestant to eliminate.

Contestants include “a single mother from Northern Ireland” and a “former astrophysicist and everyone in between.”

Mark Bell, head of commissioning for BBC Arts, said the Sunday evening, prime-time programme was “its own show”, “very different” to Bake Off and not designed to fill the void left by the hit series.

“We have been looking to develop something in that participation mode for a long time,” he said.

The show’s mentors, who will take painters to locations such as the National Portrait Gallery, Whipsnade Zoo and Queen’s House in Greenwich, are “straight talking” Diana Ali and Pascal Anson, who previously painted eight British Airways planes for the London 2012 Olympics.

Presenter Frostrup said: “It’s a programme that demands confidence, talent and hard work from the contestants and I was delighted to join forces with the Rev Richard Coles and watch this group of charismatic painters.”